The Divine Lawsuit Against Hireling Shepherds Text: Zechariah 11:4-6
Introduction: When God Sues His People
We live in a soft age, an age of sentimental therapeutic deism. The god of the modern evangelical mind is a celestial teddy bear, a divine butler, or at best, a well-meaning but tragically impotent grandfather. He is never a plaintiff. He is never a prosecutor. He never brings a lawsuit against His own people. But the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God. And because He is a covenant-keeping God, He is also a covenant-enforcing God.
The prophets are filled with the language of the courtroom. God repeatedly brings a formal, legal case, a covenant lawsuit, against His people Israel for breach of contract. He calls heaven and earth as witnesses, He presents the evidence of their infidelity, and He pronounces the righteous sentence demanded by the terms of the covenant they swore to uphold. This is not petty vindictiveness; it is the necessary action of a holy and just King whose word is law. When a people who have sworn allegiance to the King begin to act like rebels and traitors, the King is obligated by His own righteousness to bring them to justice.
This is the scene we find in Zechariah 11. The prophet is called to perform a sign-act, a piece of street theater with cosmic implications. He is to act the part of a shepherd to a flock that has been utterly betrayed by its leaders, a flock that God Himself has marked for judgment. This is not a comfortable passage. It does not fit well with our modern sensibilities. It speaks of slaughter, of guilt, of God removing His pity and handing His people over to their own destructive devices. But it is a necessary word, because it exposes the rot that sets in when the shepherds of God's people become self-serving hirelings. It reveals the terrifying consequences of leadership that is concerned with its own enrichment and not with the health of the flock. And it sets the stage for the coming of the true Shepherd, who would also be rejected, and whose rejection would seal the fate of that generation.
We must not read this as ancient history, safely cordoned off in the Old Testament. The principles here are perennial. The church today is filled with hireling shepherds, men who fleece the flock, who preach a gospel of pious platitudes while making merchandise of the saints. And God's covenant lawsuit stands against them as surely as it stood against the corrupt leaders of ancient Israel.
The Text
Thus says Yahweh my God, “Shepherd the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slaughter them and are not held guilty, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be Yahweh. Indeed, I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds do not spare them. For I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” declares Yahweh; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s hand and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”
(Zechariah 11:4-6 LSB)
A Ghastly Commission (v. 4)
The passage opens with a jarring command from God to the prophet.
"Thus says Yahweh my God, 'Shepherd the flock doomed to slaughter.'" (Zechariah 11:4)
This is a staggering commission. God tells Zechariah to pastor a dead church walking. He is to take up the shepherd's staff and care for a flock that is already on death row. The verdict has been rendered, the sentence has been passed, and the execution is scheduled. This is not a mission of rescue in the ordinary sense; it is a mission to demonstrate the righteousness of the coming judgment. God is making a point. Before He brings the axe down, He is going to show everyone precisely why the axe must fall.
The flock is Israel, God's covenant people. They are described as sheep throughout Scripture, which highlights their dependence, their vulnerability, and their tendency to wander. But here, their primary characteristic is that they are "doomed to slaughter." This is the language of the abattoir. They are being fattened for the kill. This is a terrifying picture of a people who have exhausted the patience of God. Their sin has reached a terminal stage, and the only thing left is the execution of the covenant curses they had called down upon their own heads at Sinai.
Zechariah's role here is a prophetic type of the Messiah. He is to be the good shepherd who comes to a people who will ultimately reject him, a people whose leadership has already sold them out. This is a preview of the ministry of Jesus, who came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, a nation whose leaders were blind guides and whose spiritual condition was terminal.
The Economics of Apostasy (v. 5)
Verse 5 lays out the indictment. It exposes the corrupt, self-serving ecosystem that has developed around God's people. The shepherds have become merchants, and the sheep are just commodities.
"Those who buy them slaughter them and are not held guilty, and each of those who sell them says, 'Blessed be Yahweh. Indeed, I have become rich!' And their own shepherds do not spare them." (Zechariah 11:5 LSB)
Notice the interlocking corruption. You have buyers and sellers. The "buyers" are the foreign powers, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and later the Romans, who come and devour the people. They slaughter them and feel no guilt. Why should they? They are simply acting as the instruments of God's judgment, even if they don't know it. When God removes His hand of protection, the wolves are free to do what wolves do.
But the real venom in this verse is reserved for the "sellers." Who are they? They are the corrupt leaders of Israel, the kings, the priests, the false prophets. They are the ones entrusted with the care of the flock. But instead of protecting the sheep, they sell them off to the highest bidder. They trade the people's well-being for political advantage, for wealth, for personal comfort. They are the ultimate traitors.
And look at the blasphemous piety that accompanies their treachery. As they cash the check from the sale of God's people, they have the audacity to say, "Blessed be Yahweh. Indeed, I have become rich!" This is the absolute pinnacle of religious hypocrisy. They use the language of worship to sanctify their greed. They attribute their blood money to the blessing of God. This is not atheism; it is something far worse. It is a domesticated, tamed, lap-dog religion that exists to serve the appetites of the ungodly. It is the official prayer of the hireling. "Thank you, God, for the success of my wicked schemes." Our own age is drowning in this kind of talk. Men build empires on compromised principles and then thank God for their "blessings."
The verse concludes with a summary statement of their failure: "And their own shepherds do not spare them." They have no pity, no compassion. The sheep are simply instruments for their own advancement. This is the defining mark of a hireling shepherd, as Jesus would later explain in John 10. The hireling cares nothing for the sheep. When the wolf comes, he flees because his primary concern is self-preservation. These shepherds do not flee; they open the gate for the wolf and take a commission.
The Withdrawal of Grace (v. 6)
Because the shepherds have no pity, God withdraws His. This is the terrifying logic of covenant judgment. God hands people over to the sin they have chosen.
"For I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land," declares Yahweh; "but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another's hand and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand." (Zechariah 11:6 LSB)
God's common grace, His preserving pity, is a dam that holds back the flood of chaos and destruction that our sin deserves. Here, God announces that He is removing the dam. "I will no longer spare," or "pity," the inhabitants of the land. The same word used for the faithless shepherds' lack of pity in verse 5 is now used of God. Their sin is being mirrored in His judgment. They showed no mercy, so they will receive no mercy.
What happens when God withdraws His grace? Anarchy. Society consumes itself. "I will cause the men to fall, each into another's hand and into the hand of his king." This describes a complete societal breakdown. Civil war, factionalism, and tyranny all at once. Neighbor will betray neighbor, and the government, the "king," which ought to be a protector, will become another predator. This is precisely what happened in the final days before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The Jewish factions within the city slaughtered one another even as the Roman armies surrounded them. Their king, the Roman Caesar, crushed them. When a people reject God as their king, He gives them the kings they deserve.
And the final word is one of utter finality: "I will not deliver them from their hand." The time for rescue is over. The time for appeals is past. The courtroom has been adjourned, and the sentence is now being carried out. There is a point of no return in the rebellion of a covenant people, and Israel had crossed it.
The Good Shepherd Rejected
This entire grim prophecy serves to highlight the glory of the true Shepherd when He finally came. Jesus Christ stepped into this world of corrupt, self-serving hirelings. He was the one shepherd who did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
He came to a flock that was doomed to slaughter, and He offered them life. But the sellers, the chief priests and the Pharisees, saw Him as a threat to their business model. He was bad for the bottom line. And so, for thirty pieces of silver, the price of a gored slave, they sold the Lord of Glory into the hands of the buyers, the Romans, who slaughtered Him without finding any guilt in Him.
But in that great transaction, the roles were reversed. The Shepherd was slaughtered in the place of the sheep. He took the covenant curse upon Himself. He was handed over, so that we might not be. He was not delivered from their hand, so that we might be delivered from the hand of our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us.
The warning of Zechariah still stands. God's judgment will always begin at the household of God, and it will fall most heavily on those who claim to be shepherds but are in fact wolves. But the promise also stands. The Good Shepherd, risen from the dead, still gathers His flock. He is the one who has pity. He is the one who spares. And He will deliver all who trust in Him from the hand of every enemy, and bring them at last into a land where there is no slaughter, and no hireling is ever seen again.